


DAMNED or "Happily Never After"

by Gozer



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Episode: s03e22 Last Knight, Gallows Humor, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1981896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gozer/pseuds/Gozer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story wherein people get exactly what they deserve.  Enjoy the blasphemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DAMNED or "Happily Never After"

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to "FKFIC-L" (FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU), the Forever Knight fan fiction list, on June 27, 1996, this story begins mere moments after the series finale, "Last Knight", ends. That episode put me in a really snarky mood, and you probably won't understand this story unless you've seen it. Also, references to the episode "Sons of Belial".

**DAMNED**

**or**

**"Happily Never After"**

**by Cousine Celeste**

 

The _one_ time in eight hundred years that LaCroix did exactly what Nick had asked him to do, and it had to be _this_.

The pain had been excruciating, to feel the sharpened end of the fancy-carved walking stick go through him like that, and it was a mercy that he'd literally fallen into blackness as he fell towards the floor...

...and woke up on a barren, rocky crag, warm to the touch beneath his palms and face.  Much to his mingled horror and relief, he raised his head to find Natalie lying beside him, just as she'd lain on the floor of his loft.

"Nat! Nat!" he cried her name out softly, and crawled to her, running his fingers over her beautiful face as if trying to memorize it by touch.

She sniffed and brushed at his hand, then rolled away from him. "Ungf... five more minutes, mom...."  At least, that's what he could have sworn she'd said.

"Natalie, wake up!"  He looked around their new world, wonder and fear in his eyes.

"Oooooh," she moaned, then sat up, holding her head in her hands.  "How much did I drink last night?  Where the hell are we, anyway?"  She peered at her surroundings through squinting eyes and yawned.  "Oh, God, that must have been _some_ party."

He threw his arms about her and drew her to him joyfully, eliciting yet another moan, which he ignored in his enthusiasm.  "Wherever we are, Nat, I kept my promise to you!  We're here, together, Forever!"

"Ah, not so fast," a voice from above stated decisively.

" _Gaaaah!_ " the two, for lack of a better word, 'lovers' jumped apart at the sound of the voice.  They looked up to see a masculine figure standing on a rocky ridge some fifteen feet away, outlined by the fierce midday sunlight behind him.  The sun was so strong, they couldn't quite make out his face.

"It's all right, Natalie, it's just a man; I'll find out who he is," the ex-cop, ex-vampire said to the ex-coroner, then he spoke to the newcomer.  "Who are you?  Come down to where we can see you!"

"Certainly!" said the man in a pleasant, if flinty, voice; and he picked his way down the ridge, to stand looming over them where they sat on the ground.  He had an ironic grin and a handsome, if fleshy, face that somehow reminded Nick a bit of his old master, LaCroix, though he was somewhat darker both in hair and eye-color.  But the resemblance was there, in that touch of debauchery around the set of the lips.

"Omigod, omigod!" cried Natalie, scrambling to her feet.  "It's, it's...."

"At your service, my dear, but you don't have to call me 'your god'—unless you really want to," the man took Nat's hand and kissed it suavely, causing Nick to frown as he pulled himself to _his_ feet, too.

"You recognize him, Nat?  Who is he?"  Nick edged a shoulder in front of her, as if to protect her from the man.

She just pushed his shoulder aside.  "Nick! It's 'Q'!  Or, it's the actor who plays him on television, uh, what's your name?  John DeLancie?  I _loved_ you on Next Generation!  Are you gonna be in the next Star Trek movie?"

The stranger just smiled a strange, sardonic smile.

"Nat, get a grip," Nick said, shivers of premonition going up and down his spine.  "What would an actor from a canceled TV series be doing welcoming us to the afterlife?"

"What, indeed," said the man with an affirming smile.  "He's right, you know, my dear.  I am not who you think I am.  But I have so many names and so many faces to so many people these days.  I thought you'd be amused by this persona, it's rather fitting.  When you tire of it, let me know."

"Who... who _are_ you?" Nick asked, annoyed that the man kept talking to Nat and not to him.

"Oh, c'mon, you've figured it out, Nicholas de Brabant, you just don't want to face it—what else is new!  I am He who has been known as, um...," the man mused his choices for a moment, "Let's see—Lucifer, Beelzebub—though I gotta tell you, I never liked that one—the Horned One, Prince of Darkness, Old Nick (heh, heh), the Tempter, _Satan_!"  He threw his head back and laughed. "I haven't been able to say that with a straight face since Dana Carvey came up with the Church Lady.  I'll be having a little chat with _that_ young man about disrespect in, oh, about 42.7 years, let me tell you."

" _You're_ Satan? _This_ is Hell?" Natalie squeaked.

"Yes, sweet Natalie Bertha Lambert, I am He Who Rules Hell, and _this_ is what I rule," Satan waved an arm at the barren landscape.  "Although, like me, my kingdom has many faces."

The three suddenly found themselves in a civilized, turn-of-the-century sitting room, grouped around a small table with tea things upon it.  Satan poured Natalie a cup of what smelled like Earl Grey. "I'll play mother, shall I?" he asked, offering her a dish of currant buns and cream.

"Your middle name is _Bertha_?!" crowed Nick. " _Bertha_?!?"  Maybe it was the pressure he'd been under recently, but for some reason this struck him as incredibly funny and he set to laughing long and loud.

"Yeah, this has to be Hell!" Natalie confirmed, shooting Nick a very dirty look.  "Are you saying Dana Carvey is going to go to Hell?"

"Are you kidding?  He got a year down here for 'Opportunity Knocks' alone."

She looked about the sitting room, ignoring Nick, who continued laughing weakly and muttering 'Bertha!  Her name is Bertha!' to himself.  "This place looks awfully familiar."  She caught sight of an oddly-shaped column over in the corner, with switches, buttons and pulleys on it.  "I know!  We're in the T.A.R.D.I.S., from that recent TV movie about Dr. Who!" she cried in recognition.

"Yes, television—it is my preferred medium these days," said Satan, pouring himself a cup of tea.  "Television!  Evil beyond imagination!  So many children to corrupt.  The minds never to be challenged!  The books never to be written or read!  The good works never performed!  The human connections never forged!  So much that could have, would have been done, if not for television!"

" _You_ invented television?" gasped Natalie.  She sipped her Earl Grey, double-cream.  It was delicious.

"No, _humanity_ invented television.  I invented the soap opera, the infomercial; and just you wait 'til you see the next big thing I've got going in the works.  Two words:  'Reality Television.'  Belial got the idea the first time one of his victim's brothers videotaped the exorcism."  Satan chuckled into his cup of tea for a moment, then took a sip.

Nick had stopped laughing during Satan's discourse on television, and fixed him with a knowing eye.  He was unimpressed by this frivolous being—indeed, had he not defeated the afore-mentioned Belial with the goodness inside him not three months ago?  He hadn't lived 800 years for nothing.  "So now what?  Do we bargain for our souls?"

"Nope," said Satan simply.  "I'm just having a nice chat over a cuppa with a pair of my fav acolytes.  Sure, I could be like my old buddy Jehovah and move in mysterious ways, but that wouldn't be my style, now would it?  I mean, a burning bush?  Give me a break.  What happens to you now is a fore-gone conclusion.  You each chose your own Fate very carefully and with full knowledge aforethought, after all."

"You mean I don't get a _choice_?!" cried Nick.  He'd always gotten a choice before.

"You've always gotten a choice before," Satan echoed his thoughts.  "And you've always screwed up that choice, royally.  Idiot."  The demon-master spoke genially, but seriously.  "And you've managed to corrupt this most charming angel at the last—good work, my boy.  Good work.  Thank you for giving her to me."  Satan took Natalie's free hand and kissed it, looking deeply into her eyes.

"You see, I adore you, Natalie, with every ounce of self-love I can muster.  For you are Me, the brightest angel in the firmament, denied Heaven, but not cast out, no!  You, like me, _chose_ to walk from the bright path of righteousness and into that most delicious darkness of the soul."

"Now, waitaminute," began Nick, but Natalie waved him to silence without even turning her eyes from The Dark Lord.  A classic 'good girl', she had always been attracted to the bad boys, after all.  Wasn't that how her fascination with dear Nick had started—when he'd lurched from the slab, growling and be-fanged, eyes a-glow?  _God_ , he'd been so sexy and evil and... she'd fallen for him hard, right then and there.  But here, before her, was the Ultimate Bad Boy.  Professing, what?  Love?  For her?

"You... 'love' me?  But you're, you're...," she gasped.

"Your biggest fantasy and your greatest nightmare," he clutched her to him and whispered into her curly mane of hair.  "By your own choice, you are doomed, dearest Natalie.  Doomed to an eternity by my side, walking with me through death and famine, watching petty hatreds blossom into war and ignorance fulfill itself again and again, from generation to generation of humanity—you will look upon misery and horror and be unable to touch it, unable to stop it, unable to _help_.  But always in your heart, you will hold dear the hope that you and you alone can reform me, bring me out of the evil that enshrouds me, back to the Light of Righteousness and Goodness.  That shining hope will carry you forward throughout eternity."

"Can I?  Can I, a mere human woman, really hope to reform you, Satan himself?" Natalie whispered dreamily into Satan's chest. 

Nick was _not_ happy with the turn the conversation had taken.

"Of course!" Satan laughed delightedly.  "But until the day you convince me to walk out of my self-imposed Hell and back into the Light, I'm afraid I'm going to have to spoil you terribly, dear Natalie.  We must pay our respects to the seven deadly sins, after all.  Boxes of chocolates and magnificent meals, casks of the finest wines!  And never will you gain a pound or age a day, you will always be perfect and beautiful, my dark angel.  Oh, by the way... with regard to 'Lust'...  _I_ don't bite—unless I am specifically _asked_ to!"

Nick flushed red at that. "Hey!"

"And what about _you_ , is that your next question, my Nicholas?" asked Satan pointedly.

Nick was brought up short.  "Uh, no, actually... but it _is_ a good question.  What _about_ me?"

"Well, I really must ask you this one question, Nicky-boy— _WHAT WERE YOU THINKING_?!?" the demon-master shouted at the ex-vampire.  "And, more specifically, what the _hell_ were you doing with that weird pointed-stick thingie by your fire-place?  Did you figure, what the hey, when I go, I'm goin' with something hand-carved?  A broken chair leg not good enough for you?!"

Nick was somewhat taken aback and didn't have answers for what he assumed were rhetorical questions anyway.  He grabbed his cup of tea and drank it down without really tasting it, which was a pity as it had been years since he'd eaten or drunk anything besides blood, and it was particularly good tea.

Satan abruptly let go of Natalie who took a lemon cookie from a selection of goodies and munched it happily, sipping her tea in a lady-like fashion from her perfect porcelain teacup.  Satan leaned in towards the ex-vampire and spoke in a chummy, confidential manner.  "Look, here's the deal, Nicholas.  I'm not happy with LaCroix.  You used to goad him into doing all sorts of terrible things, either to teach you a lesson or draw you closer to him.  But he's been drifting into a kind of non-evil generosity of spirit lately and I'm not at all pleased about that.  He used to be one of my better acolytes—I love the ones who think they're serving themselves when they're really serving me, and his lofty avoidance of self-knowledge has always amused me terribly.  But now, all Janette has to do is ask him nicely to look after her little newbie vampires, and he accedes to her wishes.  He teaches them their manners, provides them with blood, in short does what he can to prevent them from doing evil or being destroyed.  I was floored— _floored_ —when I realized what was going on."

"LaCroix?  What about LaCroix?" gulped Nicholas, fear growing in what we will call his soul.  "Why are you telling me this?"

"LaCroix is much, _much_ better off without you, Nicholas.  Therefore, it is necessary for you to return to him."

"Gaaa—what??!  Return?  To LaCroix?!"

"And the thing I like about this little reunion the most is, it's _your_ perfect punishment, too.  Yes, that's the ticket.  You and LaCroix.  Together again, at last.  Forever!"

As the sitting room faded from Nicholas de Brabant's sight and the pain in his chest grew, the last thing he saw was Natalie in the arms of a being far, far more evil than himself—a being therefore far, far more attractive to her than he could ever be.  And the last words he heard Satan say, at least until their next meeting, was this:

"My dearest Nicholas—just remember, I never nailed _anybody_ to a cross who didn't really _want_ to be nailed to a cross—that's the terrible beauty of my line of work!"

 

**The End of The End!**


End file.
